Sunday, February 12, 2017

When Evil Roars


When you are elected to a public office people are trusting you to hold them in your hands. They are trusting you to not do them harm. They are trusting you to not commit wickedness while representing them.

Scripture tells us that you have been put in place by God, and that you are, therefore, in the place of God, representing Him. Before you are representing people to people, you are representing God to men. It matters not your personal intention; it matters who truly put you there. The Scriptures tell us who that was. It is God who has put you into a position of power.¹

When representing God you should be doing Godly things. You should not be doing things that allow, encourage, or endorse doing wickedness while you are representing God.

When you are representing God you should be doing things that allow, encourage, or endorse people doing Godly things. The wickedness of the world is not people doing Godly things. Rather, it is people doing the wickedness of the world.

When you are in the position of representing God, but do, or allow, or encourage, or endorse wicked things, you are like a walking dead man, as though a neutron bomb has detonated in your soul—the body still stands, the structures are still there, but genuine life is gone.

God has given everyone—even unbelievers—a true witness in their soul. There are certain things that everyone innately knows are wrong and evil and wicked. Those that do them anyway have died within their soul. They are walking dead men, the neutron bomb of hell having detonated within their souls.

Albert Einstein is said to have once proved the existence of God, using evil as an argument in favor of the existence of God, asking his adversary (who attempted to use the existence of evil as an argument against the existence of God) whether dark existed. His adversary affirmed that it does. Albert replied that, actually, dark, in and of itself, has no existence; that what we call dark is actually the absence of light. He then asked his adversary if cold exists. Again his adversary affirmed that cold does exist. Albert then replied that cold, like dark, has no existence by itself, that what we call cold is really just the absence of heat. He then concluded by arguing that evil is like dark and cold, having no existence in reality; that what we call evil is really the absence of God’s love in a person’s heart.

The neutron bomb of hell is present in every person’s heart, but where God is present and active, that bomb cannot go off. It is disarmed, dismantled, and undone by the saving presence of the love of God within one’s soul.

Here in St. Louis we are being represented by wicked people who have not the love of God within their souls. They are more interested in the size of their bank accounts and the breadth of their perceived power than they would ever be in the needs of the little people that they have been charged with holding in their hands.

These people need to change, and if they will not change then we need to change them. We need to move them out and others in if they will not represent us all, rather than just a privileged very, very few.

The power of this land was designed to be the power of the ballot, not the power of the dollar. Too few, though, have exercised the power in their hands to offset those who are wicked enough to be beholden to the monetary might of the privileged very, very few. Whether they are too busy chasing the monetary might of others, or have given up hope, or just don’t care, they are no more righteous than those who hold the power at this time, and they have no one to blame but themselves.

When God has said to march they have hidden in their hovels; when God has said to shout they have muzzled themselves; and when God has said to do, they have, instead, remained as still as dead men.

The neutron bomb of hell is ticking,
there, within their souls;
and while they claim to Jesus,
there is no light they hold.
They love and hold their comfort
and will not lend a hand
unless the time should cometh
when they should need a hand.

The night they love, and darkness
they bring upon the land,
for they will not extract it,
nor swat it from the land.
But Christ the Lord is judging
and shall extend His hand
and bring upon them judgment,
or mercy, if they stand.

And that, my friends, is the point: mercy can be had. You, though, must recognize your need of it. Those who think themselves well do not seek out a physician, but only those who recognize that they have a need of one, and that there is one available to them. You don’t go to a gas station when you think your tank is full, but only when you know that it is running low, or even nearly empty, and that fuel is available to you.

What happens, though, with someone who refuses to read their gas gage?

People like that are, inevitably, in for a rude surprise: every vehicle runs out of gas if you don’t fill it up.

Every person ends up in hell if they don’t repent.

“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”² “The wages of sin is death.”³ Everyone sins, and the consequence of sin is death. We are not talking just about physical death; we are talking about a complete and eternal separation from the source of life. The Scriptures tell us who that is: “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life.”⁴ Those are the words of Jesus Christ to His disciples, after they pleaded with Him that since they didn’t know where He was going, they couldn’t know the way. He was correcting them, telling them that He is the way.

He also said that He is the life; in other words, that He is the source of all life. When you separate from Him, you separate from the source of all that life was ever intended to be, which is goodness and light in fellowship with the Creator.

When you separate from Him you’re left with darkness and evil in enmity with the Creator. In other words, hearkening back to the incident with Albert Einstein, you are, in truth, left with nothing but only absences—absences of love and light and God.

You will have no sympathy, no empathy, no fellowship, no health, no wisdom, no knowledge and no truth. Even death will not deliver you from your self-imposed hell. You will have no one and nothing with you but your own conscience, undeceived and unsilenceable, and its reminders of every time that you failed God.

The most despicable thing a person can do is to wage war on the helpless and the powerless. It is also the most cowardly thing a person can do. The despicable presented as righteousness needs to be spoken against.

In the last week, the Board of Aldermen of the City of St. Louis has sought to make the murder of the helpless and powerless a protected class under the Civil Rights Act. The passing of Board Bill 203CS is a strike at the very heart of Holy Scripture.

It is commanding the people of God to disobey God, to muzzle themselves when God says to shout and to hide themselves when God says to march and to be as still as dead men when God says to do. It brings to point the exception that Godly logic provides to Romans Chapter 13.

The logic is this: you must obey those who are superior to you and you must most obey the one that is most superior to you.

The most superior to you is God, not men. What God commands you must obey whether men like it or not.

Most people do not have the courage to obey this logic, but then, most people have not really given themselves over to God, no matter the fervent nature of their claims to the contrary. Those who are servants of God do not forever reject or ignore or avoid what God commands them to do. They might be unclear or confused, or even fearful and needing repentance, but they are not in rebellion against God. Neither do they rebel against what He has preserved in His Word.

I do not advocate for the anarchistic behavior of those who protest every time a member of our new government seeks to draw a breath. Such behavior is both childish and unproductive. You must, however, speak truth to power. If you do not, then power will never learn, and having never learned, will continue on their wicked way. God, though, will require their blood from you, for it will be on your hands.⁵

Make no mistake about this. Board Bill 203 is spittle and a middle finger in the face of God. It is the same in the face of His people. The gauntlet is thrown down. God will take it up. For God, through His people will respond when evil roars.

¹-Romans 13:1
²-Romans 3:23
³-Romans 6:23
⁴-John 14:6
⁵-Ezekiel 33:6-8

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